Something fishy going _zFg1o.Right, Claude tt

Monet, Bathers at LaGrenouillere, 1869; _below, Monet, StIl Lif 'o-'~of Fish, 1870. All worksoi[ on canvas

A new show at the National Gallery offers afresh look at Impressionism by asking howquicldy Monet, Renoir and co actuallypainted. Not before time, says John House

he stock image of theImpressionists is that theypainted quickly, trying to cap-ture in paint the most transitory

natural effects before they changedbefore their eyes. Monet fostered thisimage, constantly lamenting that thechanging light and weather preventedhim from achieving his goals. However,recent writing on the Impressionists, asRichard Brettell points out in thecatalogue of the National Gallery's"Impression: Painting Quickly inFrance 1860-1890" exhibition, hasmoved away from this view. The focus,instead, has been on their subjectmatter and, when technique has been

studied, it is the complexity and delib-eration of their procedures that havebeen stressed. "Impression: PaintingQuickly" seeks to redress the balance.

Yet it is not a simple return to anoutmoded view. At the centre of theproject lies the distinction betweenpictures that are painted quickly andthose that look as if they were paintedquickly - pictures whose surfacesparade vigorous, seemingly rapidbrush-marks, but which may, in fact,have taken a long time to paint. Theexhibition includes these, alongsidecanvases that do, indeed, seem to havebeen executed with great speed. So"Impression: Painting Quickly" raises

34 Novernbe, 2000

"Impression" raisestwo questions. First,why paint quickly?Second, why make itlook as if you havebeen painting quicklywhen you haven't?

two central questions. First, of course,why paint quickly? And second, andvery different, why make it look as ifyou have been painting quickly whenyou haven't?

The history of art offers us a numberof reasons for painting quickly, reasonsthat might be technical, or in othersenses material, or practical, or theoret-ical. Working in fresco demanded thatthe painter complete work on eachday's section of plaster before it dried,so time was of the essence. For paintersworking on routine commissions, timewas money and, like the portraitdraughtsmen in Leicester Square or onthe banks of the Seine, they mightcharge by the hour. The Impressionistconcern with changing light firstbecame an issue with the rise of out-door oil sketching in the later 18thcentury, but the problem was greatlyaggravated when in the mid-19thcentury painters began to try to executelarger, exhibition-sized pictures out ofdoors, rather than merely small studies.At the same time as this, changingnotions of artistic inspiration led someartists to view the initial creative urge,rather than the measured precision ofacademic methods, as the core of theirgenius and thus to place the highestvalue on their most impromptu work.But this last issue leads us to the

second question, why artists sought tomake it look as if something waspainted quickly; for this cult of imme-diacy led painters to seek to retain -or to superimpose - visibly informal,seemingly spontaneous brushwork onto the surfaces of even their mostambitious and elaborated canvases -Eugene Delacroix and Manet's teacherThomas Couture are prime examples.Yet this was not the only reason forwanting to make a picture appear tohave been painted quickly. Apparentquick painting might also express anattitude to the modern world - a desireto capture its essential character in atechnique that evoked its mobility andthe fleeting, fragmented glimpses that,together, made up the experience oflife in the city. Though this may seemsimilar to the practical problems ofpainting changing light effects, its basiswas rather different, since the quickpaint-mark stood for the glimpse inmore metaphorical terms, rather thanbeing a shorthand notation of theexperience itself.

"Impression: Painting Quickly" willraise these issues and many more. Ofcourse, Monet is at the heart of theshow, but represented by very diverseworks. How different the ebullient butexceptionally complex Bathers at LaGrenouillere is from the small and very

* Time to party. Above,Berthe Morisot, LeCorsage Noir, 1878;right, Pierre-AugusteRenoir, La Grenoui/lre,1869

Ik

.r[>-whea : .........- t^S + j_ i 3 0 -hE I"

direct Still Life of Fish, painted ataround the same date, and how diversethe open-air scenes painted atArgenteuil during the 1870s. Renoirand Berthe Morisot are here, both aslandscapists and figure painters, andchallengingly so is Degas, though hefamously insisted that "no art is lessspontaneous than mine." Provocatively,too, a significant group of works byManet are included. Occasionally, asin his Snow-Effect at Petit-iWontrouge,he did evidently work rapidly out ofdoors, but generally the informality ofhis mark-making was a studiouslycultivated effect, often achieved afterrepeated erasures of prior attempts.Even his small outdoor scenes wereoften produced in the studio - hecertainly was not standing in the middleof a race-track with galloping horseshurtling towards him as he paintedThe Races at Lonzgchanzps! As a codato the show, a group of canvases byVan Gogh remind us that quickpainting might remain a crucial meanseven for an artist who was seeking togo beyond what he saw as the expres-sive limitations of Impressionism.Matisse's work, which is beyond theconfines of the present show, reiteratesthe same point.

Monet's Still Life of Fish, and theother still lifes in the show, raise afurther puzzle: why paint still lifequickly, when it remains still in front ofthe painter for as long as he or shechooses? Of course, fish will go offand flower petals will fall; but,

beyond these practical concerns, itseems that the ambition to evoke therapid glance could even be carried overinto the quiet and privacy of thepainter's studio.

One central issue that "Impression:Painting Quickly" raises is the questionof "finish". Clearly none of theImpressionists' paintings was finishedin the sense that academic practice inthe 19th century would have demand-ed; but, even within the Impressionists'work, there are clear distinctionsbetween more or less elaborately exe-cuted canvases. The selection herefocuses on the more informal works,but also for the most part on those thatthe artists considered finished in somesense - whether because they signedthem or exhibited them or sold themor gave them away.

Yet the pictures in the show differgreatly in their status - in the positionthat they occupied in the artists' pro-duction and the value that theyattributed to them at the time of theirmaking. Some are explicitly prepara-tory studies for other pictures, likeManet's small Bar at the Folies-Bergere(though its forms are unlike the finalpicture, x-rays of this show that in itsfirst stages it was virtually identical tothe study); some, like Monet's littlefigure-scenes of his wife on Trouvillebeach during their honeymoon in1870, are evidently private works;some were sold to supportive collectors- the painter Gustave Caillebottebought Monet's Regatta at Argententil,

Animal antics. Top,Edouard Manet, TheRaces at Longchamps,1866; above, VincentVan Gogh, Crab on itsBack, 1889. Facingpage: above, VanGogh, Seascape,1888; right, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, LaPiazza San Marco,Venice, 1881

still one of the most shocking of allImpressionist canvases in the raw ener-gy of its handling; and some remainedin the artists' studios for many yearsuntil changing tastes made their rough-ness more palatable and encouragedthe artist to dispose of them.

Strictly speaking, these differenttypes of work cannot all be judged bythe same criteria; but how will they lookwhen brought together in the exhibi-tion? Will we see some underlyingsimilarity in their appearance, resultingfrom their informality and from theparaded "manual dexterity" that theyall share? Is there some essential qual-ity to a "quick painting"? Or will itbecome apparent that they belong todifferent categories of work thatdemand to be viewed in different

36 Novembei 2000

terms? The project of the exhibitioninvites us to ask these questions; onlywhen we see the pictures on the wallwill we begin to glean the answers.

But, whatever their effect, the paint-ings in "Impression: Painting Quickly"will offer us a fresh insight into a keymoment in the history of art - themoment when the most informaland virtuoso "quick paintings" firstcame to be presented in public ascomplete works of art. Controversialwhen they were first seen, they arenow among the most hallowed forms ofart: what does this tell us about ourown culture? !X;

"Inmpression: Painting Quickly in France1860-1890", sponsored by UBS War-burg, National Gallery, London WC2(020 7747 2885), 1 Nov-28 3an. Theexhibition catalogue, written by Richard RBrettell, is published by the NationalGallery and distributed byYale UniversityPress at £16.95(hb), C10.95(pb).

Yohn House is Professor of History ofArtat the Courtauld Institute ofArt, Londonand is the author of "Monet:Nature intoArt"; published by Yale University Press

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

TITLE: Trick of the lightSOURCE: Art Review (London, England) 52 N 2000

WN: 0030604391006

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